Psycho’ Role in ‘Bates Motel’

Rihanna is going to tackle her biggest acting role yet, joining the final season of the hit A&E show, Bates Motel.

It was announced on Friday at San Diego Comic-Con that the songtress will play the role of Marion Crane in Season 5. As we all know from the classic 1960 Alfred Hitchcock movie Psycho, Marion meets her demise at the hands of crazy Norman Bates, who stabs her in the shower, dressed as his mother, Norma Bates. You know, this one, with Janet Leigh:

Executive producers Carlton Cuse and Kerry Ehrin said in a statement, “We wanted to thrust the iconic role into a contemporary spotlight and redefine it in a meaningful and exciting new way. We also heard Rihanna was a fan of the show, and we were huge fans of hers, so it was the perfect collision of creativity and fate.”

At the end of Season 4, Norma Bates, played so brilliantly by Vera Farmiga, was killed off after son Norman (Freddie Highmore) filled their house with carbon monoxide but Norma does return, at least in some fashion, i.e. in Norman’s twisted mind.

Cuse told The Hollywood Reporter after the season finale, “Season 5 is about the ways in which our show does and more specifically does not intersect with the events of Psycho. We are going to see a version of Norman that is much closer now to the one in the movie, but the way in which he acts and the events in the story will not be the same as the movie. They will cross paths with some of the events in the movie and lead to an ultimate resolution. What that resolution is and how that plays out is something that will be not disconnected to the movie Psycho but will be very much our own story in the same way the entire series has been.”

The final season of Bates Motel will go into production in the fall and return in 2017.